End of an era: Fujifilm to discontinue FP-100C instant film

Fujifilm Japan has announced that it is to stop production of its FP-100C instant film that enthusiasts use in old Polaroid-type cameras. The film has only been available in the 3.25x4.25in size recently, since the 5x4in version was discontinued, but it has been keeping vintage cameras clicking since Polaroid stopped production itself.

The company says that it will halt production in spring this year, but that stocks will continue to be available for some time after that. Falling demand and sales are cited as the reasons for the ending of the product line, which also spells the end of the working life of Type 100 cameras. The company used to produce a black and white version too, but that was stopped in 2014.

The Fujifilm FP-100 films are particularly popular with enthusiasts and professionals because they produce very good quality images, but also because a negative can be recovered, cleared and used for making prints. The film comes in a peel-apart format, and the section most people discard contains a negative that is difficult to see because it has a black coating on the outside – to prevent light getting into the pack. This can be removed with domestic bleach, and when thoroughly washed and dried a very serviceable negative can be had.

Comments

After my Canon AE-1 Program I've just bought my second film camera: a Mamiya RZ67. I am planning to buy an (inexpensive) Polaroid back and I expected that the price of the Fujifilm FP-100c is down, but actually not. On ebay.de you can buy as much as you want, but one pack is no less than €20 (€2 per sheet). Now that Fujifilm announced the discontinuation of the FP-100c, are the prices going up? Maybe after 2018, after the expiration dates, the prices start falling.

Although I bought some of it recently , I am very disappointed from the announcement.Mostly saddening news for us , analogue photographers.I use more instant film now than ever in my photographic experience from 1985.The Polaroid 669 , I have some expired one, FP 3000B I still have some packs in the fridge, and the FP 100C , those bleached negatives are just so unique and sharp, there is also so much more detail in the highlights than on the positive.Long live Analogue.https://www.flickr.com/photos/30394302@N05/albums/72157660174522744

It is funny how allot of tech is nice, and but not real special. As a kid Poloroid pictures were amazing. It would magically appear before your eyes. Now digital instant everything while amazing in its own. That magic special seems gone forever.

Show up at an event with your $5000 digital camera body with $3000 worth of glass in front of it and 99% of the population will be about as interested in it as they would a postage stamp. Now, pull out a 1969 Polaroid 360, point, shoot, pull, wait then peel, and in no time you'll have a crowd around you. Hopefully you brought several packs of film, because you're going to need it!

There is something magic about Edwin Land's creation. Young and old alike, including teens with their brand new Samsung Edge phones are taken aback by this ancient technology. Instax comes close, but just doesn't offer the intensity, vibrance or sharpness of the bellowed filmpack cameras.

Don't get me wrong. I love my digital cameras. I've had a 1Ds MKIII for over 6 years as well as a 1Dx and various other quick, small and stealthy shooters, but if I just want to have fun, I bring at least one of my Polaroid's!

I shoot digital 90% of the time, but using the Polaroid 600se (and the Fuji FP-100C that I put in it) has been a joy. I've used it for testing exposures when I shoot medium format and also as gifts for people at events, etc., and the quality of the images astounds people every time. It's a very different effect than digital, and it's gorgeous. In the studio, the light falloff is spectacular, making the blacks incredibly lustrous. In the field, the color replication is brilliant. I'm going to miss this film a ton. This is a big loss.

Yeah probably... Apple aren't likely to ever invest in a professional line of camera products.... Besides they're more likely to buy an existing company than develop anything themselves. Samsung on the other hand, seem to be curbing products left and right. Also professing that it's not a profitable industry is ridiculous... I'll cite Nikon gross profit margins as my argument https://ycharts.com/companies/NINOY/gross_profit_margin

How much longer will "professional photography" be relevant?? My version of the future is Canon and Fuji making long zoom that will be mounted on Sony Broadcast cameras. The DSLR for video will be replaced by Smart Phones. For soccer moms the next generation of Smart Phones will be good enough. Most of the advertising work I've done in the past can now be done with an iPhone 6+. Samsung has seen the writing on the wall and knows that the road to profits is Smart Phones, not cameras. Things change—time marches on.

@cdembrey "Most of the advertising work I've done in the past can now be done with an iPhone 6+". Ridiculous and outlandish dribble. I can't speak for everyone but there is no way I would offer a client a portfolio consisting of iPhone 'snaps'...

I'm sure they would have discontinued it 10 years ago, if it weren't for the fact that people were still buying it. Do you really think any company would keep producing a product, if there was no demand for it?

Cdembrey.... What? Again zero sense! 1. Do you mean Full Frame when you say FF? If so... Nikon have many FF cameras used by millions of people daily. You are patently wrong. 2. The D300s is a Dx crop sensor, thus making your point moot.

I should have said NEW Full Frame cameras like the D750. Nikon lost a lot of PROFESSIONAL Dx shooters by trying to force Unwanted Full Frame down their throats. By not making a D400, they forced customers to go elsewhere. Simple as that.

Digital maybe able come to rescue, a small sensor , maybe one inch. It would be a camera, to make a picture of a forcing screen. It would be in a light tight box. This would give the photographer a good idea of what they are working with.

You be getting a a small dig camera to make like image off a forcing screen, it would working being at "B" then you take your image. It be cal. to give you image and exposure of film, buy worki with the system to cal..it. English enough. You get or no.

I'm definitely an "old bore" who laments the passing of film...even though I started my transition to digital around '92 with a Leaf back on my Hassy ELM....I've owned every film format from 35 to 11x14 (two of those), shot every type of Polaroid film there is (even Polavision), shot for clients including Polaroid for advertising & collateral in-studio and internationally, and still own two vintage Polaroid cameras, an SX70 and a 195B that were signed for me by Dr. Land around 1987 (my then studio was nearby to his "Rowland" Institute in Cambridge, (I used to see him outside on rare occasion, but that's another story)

I don't shoot film anymore, haven't much since about 2000, but I love seeing someone on the street with a film camera as opposed to the masses with DSLR's, battery grips, giant cheap zooms, shoe mount flash...taking a picture of a f***ing squirrel in the Boston Public Garden...

Maybe the loss of this Fuji instant won't matter much to those who still shoot film, more to those doing it in-studio, and I defy anyone to tell me a good scan from a perfect 120 frame ( ah, my Fuji 6x9), wasn't / isn't a beautiful thing...won't mean much to those who see us "old bores" as that....but I guarantee you never got to do what I got to do, was paid to do, a lot as a.matter of fact...shooting film.It's all gotten cheaper and easier since then, everyone's a photographer. Unfortunately, although many are good, very good, most suck.

I transitioned to digital in 2005 and haven't looked back! Don't miss anything about film at all. I also have a lot of film cameras lying around too: A Nikon F, Practica BC-1, a Minolta AF camera ( I forget the model designation, even though it was my last film camera before going digital) and a couple of Polaroid instant cameras too. One a monochrome model from the 70s and a colour one from the early 80s.

All of the people making fun of this but that have no real idea what it is or what it means to others should keep silent. imagine the battery in your new camera dies and there was no replacement ever. I would not mock you and your now useless lenses. Photography in all kinds of forms is a good thing we don't all need to use the same medium and produce the same images.

Oh lord what is this world just coming to?Meanwhile I keep insisting that my Cugnot Steam Trolley is the best vehicle ever made... My home stove still fired with anthracite coal. And some low paid peasants to work in the gardens whilst I venture out to the gentleman's club.Ah well... the world sure is changing for the worse.

Every time I hear about ceasing of this or other silver-halide material, I feel sad. And I'm pretty sure, that it is not only nostalgia. Almost each of these products was also mean of artistic expression, impossible to be fully replicate by digital. Don't get me wrong - digital is awesome, IQ of images is awesome, printers does very good job on premium quality papers... But I feel we loose something.

I get it, and it's just another sign of the times. Reminds me of the initiative to bring back Polaroid 55. I used it in a 4x5 view and the B&W was AWESOME! It might not have competed with the best ASA 50/35 print/neg products but was pretty darn good, AND... you got a two'fer, with a negative on the back of the print! I used to carry a bottle of weak fixer around to toss the negs into until I got home to my darkroom. It was a joy to use.

So wrong in so many ways...."old Polaroid cameras"?....how about all the medium format Polaroid adapter backs we used for proofing with Hasselblads, Nikon, 4x5 Graflok on just about any view camera, I'd shoot this before 8x10 Polaroids to pre-proof the proof!

And NO, other then 55 type, there was no negative, people could do a transfer before the emulsion cured, (off the print and off the neg side), and it was a sodium sulfite bath thst cleared the negetive, ie, an "alkalie"...AND let's not forget that really old Polaroid cameras used Polaroid roll film, the pack film was the "modern" peel-apart.

Don't get me started on the "Impossible" project...I couldn't believe that a Polaroid 8x10 auto processor that I had forgotten to heave into a dumpster years earlier suddenly was selling on EBay for a LOT of money and is now finding its 2nd life in NY being cursed at when another "Impossible" bad expensive instant print spits out.

Anyone shooting film these days and proofing with the Fuji available instant film is having a seriously bad day.

Film has such a rich heritage—so many formats and film types with each lending unique characteristics to image-making. Digital is clinical and sterile by comparison. This explains the popularity of film simulations and filters which offer the next best thing. The cost effectiveness of digital files and screen devices are making people lose touch with the beauty of the print. Sad to say the least.

Digital have far more format than film. Each different color profile, white balance, filter, ISO, MP is a different format. You are only limited by your imagination with digital unlike film which is limited by technology.

So if film was so rich an experience, why did so many people abandon it in favor of digital? Heritage obviously doesn't count for much if consumers prefer something else.

As for film formats, Kodak has discontinued more than 30 different roll film sizes alone. Plus disk, APS, and 124 as well as 4x5 Readiload, pack films, etc. Agfa discontinued its Rapid system long ago. And Fuji dropped its 4x5 Quickload. Polaroid 8x10 and other sizes.

So many cameras and film holders have been abandoned over the years. I think for practical purposes all that remain for still photography are 35mm, 70mm, 120 220 and some sheet sizes. Purhaps Minox, respooled 120 to 620 and some specialty sizes are still available. Not many choices of color emulsions are available today and fewer b/w too.

Laziness mainly. Most people just dropped their film off at the drugstore and got back whatever crap processing the lab did that day. People that cared about the rich experience did their own processing and printing to get just the result they wanted. That's why most photographs taken today are never printed at all, they just live on a card, hard drive, or the cloud after being shot. The 'keepers' are posted to Facebook and promptly forgotten about after the initial fishing for likes and affirmations from Facebook 'friends'.

I don't think professional and serious amateur photographers abandoned film out of laziness. It is because digital photography is a far superior methodology in many ways at a much lower price. For example, I used to shoot about 4 packs of Polaroid a day for proofing before shooting my transparency film. Why would I consider that methodology today when I can instantly shoot tethered to a computer or judge on the LCD?

Format is the size of the capture medium. There were more formats with cameras and lenses to go with them in the film era compared to digital. I am not knocking digital cameras. The history of photography has evolved in the direction of ever increasing convenience. Smartphones represent the ultimate convenience and are impacting the industry while reshaping consumer expectations. At a wedding recently and I was shocked to find I was the only one who had brought a camera besides the pros hired for the event.

Consumers do not care about the decline of film. It is artists who care because they are losing a photographic medium.

Film types and the various processing and printing techniques, created a sophisticated visual craft and culture. Even now I t still informs our tastes. Possibly among the next big things in photography could be colour. Fuji is leading the way with film simulations.

Variety is beneficial and the more tools and media we have the better.

Anyone wanna buy a Polaroid 600se with two lenses.....getting cheaper by the day!

Seriously though, I have not used it for a while and never getting rid of it but that is still disappointing.Not quite the same film as I used.....this must be the last available type made?Guess if I HAD used it more (along with many others) it might still be around.

I suppose I could use the camera with medium format film if I really wanted to.....just so much easier with the instant film.

There are digital print cameras (Polaroid ZINK) that would be useful for the same purpose. Of course many cameras that use this pack film will soon be unusable including view cameras and other cameras that have attachable "Polaroid" backs.

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